


Saccharine

by patentpending



Series: 13 Days of no-longer Halloween [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Fae & Fairies, Fae Patton Sanders, Fairy Tale Elements, Horror, M/M, Schrödinger's Virgil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 21:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17030484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patentpending/pseuds/patentpending
Summary: Against all warnings, Virgil falls in love with the fae in the woods.





	Saccharine

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: body horror, general horror, mentions of blood, mentions of bones, minor injury, implied cannibalism. This is either really cute or really horrifying, depending on what you chose to believe about Patton.

The house seems harmless enough.  White picket fences ring the cottage, cozy and sleepy with its red shutters and baby blue door.  From the chimney, a fluffy stream of black smoke drifts up into the blue summer sky.  The air smells of sweet sugar.  The path through the garden through the door is paved with smooth white circles, partially buried and bleached by the sunlight.

Virgil looks down at them and notices infinitesimal cracks in the same pattern on each of them, radiating out from a single spot.  His steps echo a hollow sound across the thick, wild garden of aconitum, foxgloves, lily of the valley, and plants he’s never even seen before.  He stares at a flower that looks like an exploding sun and smells of honey, and he cannot help but feel as if the flowers’ faces are following his hesitant path.

Virgil clenches his hands into fists and rips his gaze away, fixating on the blue door.  The flowers watch him approach.

He shouldn’t be here.

 

It was only because Logan was so used to catching his friend’s gaze that he knew when Virgil was thinking of the woods again.  “You know you’re not to go there,” he chided each time.

“Of course I do!”  Virgil protested each time.  “I never have” - which was true - “and I never will.” - which was a lie.

“Excellent,” Logan sighed each time, the perpetually worried corners of his eyes relaxing an infinitesimal amount.

Virgil never went into the forest, that was true, but he got as close as he dared, drifting nearer and nearer every day.  He couldn’t help himself, not when Patton dwelled on the other side of that emerald barrier.

Patton had started out as the slightest flicker on the edges of Virgil’s vision, a gap in the starlight as Virgil hurried home along the rough-hewn paths.  The fae grew into a whisper on the wind, the faintest laughter seeping into Virgil’s home as he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.  He became a pull then, an inexplicable pull in Virgil’s stomach that drew him into a moonlit clearing, ringed with mushrooms that glowed in the celestial light.

He only saw the fae in flashes, but they grew longer and longer each night he crept along stone paths while his village slept, heart pounding in his throat as he succumbed to the irresistible pull.  He stayed as long as he dared, clinging to the moonlight for protection.  The mother moon would protect him, as long as she could see him.  Even so, he was never brave enough to stay for long.

It was after five months of sneaking out near-nightly that Virgil properly saw Patton for the first time.

Virgil’s heart pounded in fear as he warred with himself - wanting to go home  _and_  abhorring the thought of leaving the forest’s boundary; it was the typical routine.  His gray eyes scanned the forest for that familiar gap, the shadow taken form.  The night before he could’ve sworn that he saw the edge of a face, wild with hemlock-white eyes peering back out at him, but it had disappeared before he could be sure.

He ran.  He ran, ears ringing and chest fit to burst and spots trembling before his eyes before he finally collapsed into his cot.

Virgil didn’t go out the night after that or the next or the next.  He laid in bed, hands clenched into fists as the mother moon gazed down on him, concerned.  He shut his ears against the sound of distant laughter on the wind and curled into a ball until his limbs stopped shaking with the need to prowl through that emerald forest.  He ignored the smell of the sweetness of the forest that crept into his room, wrapping around him until he could hardly breathe.

Virgil needed to go back.  He had to.

He visited the apothecary that next morning, binding sage and salt and iron in a small burlap bag and tying it with rough twine.  He steadfastly ignored the apothecary’s concerned gaze as he muttered to himself, crushing boxwood and rowan between his fingertips.

“Is that all, Virgil?”  He asked cautiously when the sack was placed before him.

“Yeah,” Virgil muttered, rubbing at his tired eyes.  “Should be. Thanks, Thomas.”

Thomas nosed through the bag, mentally calculating.  “I could give you some valerian root, too. It might help you sleep.”

Virgil huffed out a laugh at that and tossed a few coins on the counter, scooping up the bag.  “Trust me, sleep is the least of my worries right now.”

He trudged home, bleary-eyed.  He didn’t see the three gazes following him - brown eyes, hidden behind spectacles; green eyes of a bard strumming the lyre and singing; and hemlock-white eyes, peering out from the forest.

Virgil collapsed as soon as he got home, and he slept the sleep of the dead.

That night, the mother moon tried to keep him safely in bed, but the laughter on the wind echoed through his heart, setting his limbs aquiver.

He crept through the shadows, silent as the mist, until he found himself in their clearing.  He sat down in the dew-soaked grass, clutching the burlap sack in his hand, and he waited.

Virgil saw the eyes again that night, gleaming pools of mist in the darkness.  He stood, stock-still, as around them, a face formed, all wide, shining eyes and faded purple curls and smiling lips, fangs poking out over them.  For a moment, Virgil couldn’t breathe.

“Hello,” Virgil managed, remembering his manners.  The fae did not take kindly to rudeness.  He stood, not wanting to appear vulnerable, and brushed the dew from his trousers.

The being grinned at him, teeth long and sharp.  “Heya, kiddo!”

It was enough to startle a laugh out of Virgil - grating and high and frightened, but a laugh nonetheless.  “You look younger than I am.”

“Really?”  He tilted his head, masses of purple curls tumbling with the motion.  “I thought I looked like Patton!”

“Patton?”  Virgil repeated.  The name was sweet; he could taste it in the back of his throat.

The fae grinned, nose crinkling.  “My name,” he explained.  “May I have yours?”

Alarm bells rang in Virgil’s head, as loud and sonorous the time the church bells of his village had rang when the dragon had come swooping above head.  

Virgil managed a smile, clutching the iron band in his pocket.  “You can call me Anxiety,” he said, for that was the thing creeping up his throat and threatening to smother his lips.

Patton narrowed his eyes, just long enough for the pupil to expand, consuming them with black, then suddenly, he smiled again, eyes back to white.  “Well, that’s not much of a name, now is it?”

Virgil shrugged.  “They tell stories around the village; names have an influence over someone. I don’t much like being powerless.”

There were rules for dealing with someone - something - like Patton. Virgil clung to them, pressing the words into his mind until they left a brand.  _Beware of your words.  Do not take their food.  Do not give them your name.  Carry iron, and name your blade.  If not, it will turn against you._

He cannot take the fae’s name from him; Patton has already given it.  In the fae asking for his, however, a slip-up could cost Virgil his free will.

“Oh,” the fae cooed, slipping closer.  He moved like a shadow, gliding from one tree to the next in a movement so quick Virgil’s eyes could scarcely comprehend it.  “Aren’t you clever?”

It wasn’t a compliment.

“Vigilant, more like,” Virgil countered, gripping the iron in his pocket until the cold edges bit into his flesh.

“Not vigilant enough to ward off the calls of a fae.”  Patton grinned.

“Why  _have_  you been calling to me? Do you want to eat me? Are you going to step out of that forest and rip my heart out?”  Virgil hissed, trying to fight back the fear creeping up his throat.  Salt and sage and iron trembled in his grasp.

“Don’t be silly.”  The fae laughed, and Virgil almost lost his mind in the sound.  “You know I can’t go where the moon watches.”

“Not much of a reassurance,” Virgil muttered, forcing his hands to still.

“For a clever boy like you?”  Patton smiled.  “It should be enough.”

The mother moon began to slip from the sky, and Patton’s pale eyes followed her path.  “You better run, Anxiety.”  His voice was almost bitter.  “No telling what the mad fae will do to you now.”

And Virgil obeyed.

 

There are less than five feet until he reaches Patton’s door.

If ever he has a chance to turn around, to escape, to turn his back on Patton, this is it.  The flowers would be his only witness, and he doesn’t think that daffodils are renowned for their chattiness.

He does not hear them, murmuring softly to each other about this human their fae sighs over.   _Scrawny,_  is the general consensus,  _but there’s no accounting for taste._

The air smells of sugar, hanging thick over his head.  He tilts his head back to look at the billowing black smoke, wondering what Patton’s making.

He knows he will not leave, but it’s nice to pretend to have options.

Four feet.

If he left, he’d be able to face Logan, to apologize and tell him he was right.  If Logan was right.  There was really no way of telling.

Three feet.

The paved path is disconcerting, somehow.  It echoes hollowly under his feet. The ground around each white mound is soft, as if they were recently buried.

Two feet.

He shouldn’t still be walking.  Why is he still walking?

One foot.

He knows the answer, of course: Patton.  Always, he will be brave for Patton.

He’s here, standing outside the door.

Virgil takes a deep breath, and he knocks.

 

“Anxiety!”  Patton chirped cheerfully the next time Virgil visited.  “How are you, kiddo?”

He was perched in a tree high above Virgil’s head, sheltered from the moon’s watchful eye by the thick foliage of glossy green leaves.

“What are you doing up there?”  Virgil asked in lieu of a response, craning his neck to get a better look of the fae, shining in the starlight.  He was painfully beautiful, and Virgil pressed a hand into his chest to rid it of its ache.

“Waiting.”  The fae spread his arms and fell.  Virgil cried out, alarmed, but the fae caught himself effortlessly on the next branch, hanging by his knees and laughing.

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Virgil gasped, twisting his fingers in his cloak.  “Are you trying to kill me?!”

“Not actively.”  The fae grinned down at him, eyes hidden by the shadows on his face.

A chill ran down Virgil’s spine, and he took a few reflexive steps backwards.

Patton laughed, and Virgil’s head swam in the sound.  The fae straightened his legs and fell, only barely catching himself by his fingertips on the next branch.  Virgil watched, wide-eyed, as the fae tumbled from the tree, twisting and turning like the bends of a river.  The entire way down, he laughed as he barely managed to catch himself.  He laughed as he avoided being dashed to his death by the skin of his fingertips.

Virgil felt a stab in his chest, and it took a moment for him to recognize envy.  Briefly, he allowed himself to wonder what that ecstasy felt like.  What would it be like to be so unabashed?  So free?

Patton landed with a thump against the soft mosses that coated the forest like a thick rug.  He bowed, grinning that too-wide smile.  “Taa-daa!”

“You could’ve hurt yourself,”  Virgil chided, then paused, wondering why he cared so much.

“Nah,” the fae waved off his concern.  “I do stuff like that all the time.”  He grinned, holding out a hand to Virgil.  “You could too, if you wanted.”

Virgil just snorted, backing away and shaking his head.  “I could never do that.”

Patton paused for a moment, and Virgil had to look away, embarrassed by the intensity of the fae’s gaze.  “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”  Patton asked softly, tilting his head.

“Tired of what?”

“Being so scared all the time.”

Virgil’s stomach clenched, but he shoved the feeling away, tightening his hands into fists.  “It’s worked so far.”

“Has it?”  Patton hummed, and the trees swayed in time with his melody.  “I’m sure you have quite the happy life.”

“I do,” Virgil responded stalwartly.  Behind him, the houses of the village huddled together, seeking shelter from the great wide world beyond.  No one stirred.

Patton smiled as if Virgil had just told a particularly amusing joke.  “Then why do you sneak out at night to talk to the strange fae in the woods? Isn’t it…  _tree_ -son?”

To that, Virgil had no answer.  What could he say, that something inside of him craved Patton? That the fae was a bad habit that he just couldn’t kick?  “If you’d like me to leave you alone, you could’ve just said it.”

“No!”  Patton exclaimed, and, for a moment, they were both taken aback by his outburst.  “No,” Patton repeated, softer.  “I think I’d miss you.”

To that, Virgil had no response.

“You’re my only company in these big ‘ol forests.”  The fae smiled sheepishly.  “Squirrels aren’t great conversationalists.”

Virgil blinked.  “Are there not other fae?”

Patton shrugged. “None here.”  He lowered his eyes coquettishly.  “You could always come inside and… keep me company.”  He purred his words, winking, and Virgil willed the flush away from his cheeks.

“Tempting,” Virgil drawled with far more honesty than he would’ve liked.  “But no one’s ever come back out alive.” He drew his patchwork cloak closer around him.  “That doesn’t exactly bode well.”

Patton grinned, and Virgil wondered how so many teeth could fit in that mouth.  “Well, I’ve never liked any of them as much as you.”  He giggled and pulled something out of his pocket, tossing it to Virgil.  “Catch!”

Virgil reached out and neatly caught the small square.  He lifted it to his face, almost surprised it hadn’t dissolved into the moonlight that blanketed his and Patton’s clearing.  That was the first time he truly registered that things could truly pass the line between his world and Patton’s.

“What is it?”  He asked, fiddling with the waxy paper.

“Caramel,” Patton responded, pointed ears twitching in excitement.  “You eat it.”

Virgil snorted.  “Nice try. Everyone knows you don’t take food from a fae.”

“Well, you’re not taking it, now are you?”  Patton pointed out, a tad petulantly.  “I’m giving it to you.”

Words are as important to the fae as the air they are carried on.  Words are their livelihood, their way of enchantment.  Words can bind them but can just as easily ensnare their victims in a tangled web of crisp vowels and soaring consonants.

“Unless you just don’t cara-any-mel.”

Or the fae can also just make puns.

Cautiously, Virgil unwrapped the waxen paper.  The square inside was a soft brown, the color of freshly-baked bread, and sticky to the touch.  He brought it to his face, sniffed, and slowly placed it between his lips.

Sunlight melted on his tongue, and Virgil felt like he was glowing.  His eyes fluttered shut; he missed the way Patton looked at him, far too soft for such a wild creature.  The candy was like nothing Virgil had ever had before - sweet and sugary and strange.

“Do you like it?”  Patton asked quietly when Virgil’s moon-gray eyes opened again.

For the first time, Virgil smiled at him genuinely.  “I love it.”

A tension released from Patton’s shoulders, and he smiled.  “Good.”  He tilted his eyes up towards the falling moon.  “Come back tomorrow, kiddo. I’ll have something else you’ll like.”  He grinned.  “Unless you’d just like to come with me to get it.”

Virgil snorted, a touch of good humor still lingering on his lips.  “Hard pass, thanks.”

Patton giggled.  “Worth a shot.”  

And then he was gone.

The pattern continued.  Virgil crept from his fearful village each night to join Patton in the realm between moonlight and shadows.  He sat as close to the edge of the forest as he dared, threading his fingers through the dew-soaked grass as he spoke with the fae.  With Patton.  Every night, the fae tossed him a piece of candy, and every night, Virgil asked if he was giving it to him.

“Yes,” Patton sighed each night, eyes soft with exasperated amusement.  “I give this to you.”

They talked and laughed and made puns and… and flirted.  The fae was the boldest being Virgil had ever met, so each time the human could make Patton blush was a personal success.  Virgil found himself entranced with the fae’s expressions, the crinkle of his nose when he smiled, the smooth curve of his lips when he pouted, the razor-sharp gleam in his eyes when the trees above them thrashed in time with his laughter.

Virgil fell before he could stop himself, which wouldn’t be so bad if he sure he  _wanted_  to stop himself.

And then, each night as the moon slipped from her throne in the sky, Patton asked Virgil to come with him.

Most nights, Virgil managed to laugh it off, to make a pun or a joke that would increase that teasing sparkle in Patton’s eyes.

Some nights, however, Patton’s voice was softer, more pleading.  He twisted his fingers together before him and peered up at Virgil through his thick eyelashes.  “You could always come with me,” he said.

Every time, Virgil found it harder to say no.

Such was a night like that night.

“Come on.”  Patton’s eyes glowed silver in the moonlight, too large and too dark for Virgil to bear.  The moon was falling from her perch in the sky, and soon, Virgil would have to leave.

Patton held out a hand, and Virgil’s own twitched in response.

Virgil wrenched his gaze away, staring fixedly at the crushed grass below his feet.  “No.”

Patton sighed at that, but the fae are not prone to melancholy.  He laughed, intoxicatingly saccharine.  “Then someday.”

“Someday.”  Virgil found himself repeating.  _An echo is not a promise,_ he told himself, but he did not believe his own lie.

“In that case” - Patton stepped forward as much as he could, body held back by the cage of the forest even as his gaze followed Virgil - “I look forward to our someday.”

Virgil’s chest ached, and he took a staggering step forward until he was almost out of the moon’s protective shine.  He trembled, wanting to reach out and touch this being who had become a gap in the starlight on the edges of his vision, the whisper of laughter in his ears, the feeling of fire in his chest, the scent of the richness of the forest.  But he couldn’t.  Not yet.  “As do I.”

Before Virgil could stop himself, he leaned forward, and Patton became the sweetness of caramel on his tongue.

 

The door opens, and Patton stands before Virgil.

It takes him a moment to register, hemlock-white eyes scrunched in confusion for a moment as he registers the sight before him.  “You’re here,” he murmurs softly, hardly daring to believe it.  He lights up, repeating himself as his eyes shine and mouth opens in a wide, wide smile.  “You’re here!”

Virgil’s heart pounds in his throat, but he responds.  “Yes. I am.”

Then Patton is throwing his arms around Virgil, giggling that laugh that makes Virgil feel drunk on the very sound of it.  “I’m so happy!”  he cries, grasp stronger than Virgil would’ve thought possible.

Virgil winds his arms around Patton in turn, murmuring into the faded purple curls on the fae’s head.  “I’m happy, too.”

“Oh, Anxiety.”  Patton nuzzles into his chest, hotter than a supernova.  “I just can’t believe it.”  He pulls back and examines him thoroughly, fussing over the smallest scratch on the back of the human’s hand.  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”  He presses a kiss to the scratch, licking up the tiny drop of blood beaded on Virgil’s skin.  “It isn’t safe for you to be out there alone.”

“I was prepared,” Virgil defends, taping his pocket reflexively.  Inside, a bar of iron, a handkerchief full of salt, and a mix of sage and rowan wood reside, waiting.

Patton stares at it, eyes flickering dark for a moment, as if he can see through the thick-woven cloth to the weapons inside, but just as quickly, he breaks back into that soft, sunny smile that Virgil could melt in.  “Good.”

Patton leans up and presses their lips together, soft as the fluttering wings of the butterflies in Virgil’s stomach.

 

Virgil wasn’t listening to Roman.

Generally speaking, this was nothing new, but the cause thereof was an anomaly this time around.  It had been months since he first kissed Patton and the woods themselves silenced at the sight, the feeling.  Months and months of him meeting the fae - craving him like a starving man craves food - and leaving with the taste of caramel in his mouth.

He gazed at those still-same woods now, and a soft smile curled his lips.

“So then I told Logan that I’ve decided to become a dragon-slayer to win his favor, and I’ll get you a tooth, because that’s the only thing edgier than you and your fae boyfriend.”

Virgil blinked, snapping back into the moment.  Roman stared at him, exasperated.  “I’m sorry, “ Virgil croaked.  “What?”

“Have you listened to a single word I’ve said for the past hour?”

Virgil’s silence was answer enough.

Roman groaned dramatically, flopping back on the grassy hill that overlooked their village.  “I must’ve personally crossed three of the fates in a past life to get stuck with you.”

“Then I must’ve crossed all seven,” Virgil retorted dryly, “if I’m stuck with you.”

Roman sputtered idginantly, and Virgil laughed, but his eyes drifted away, back towards the treeline.

“You know,” Roman said slowly, following his friend’s gray gaze to the emerald forest.  “There are stories of what happens in those woods.”

Virgil groaned, burrowing deeper into his cloak.  “Yes, the unsuspecting villager gets lured in and never comes back out. What an original tale, Roman.  Please, regale me with another.”

The bard scoffed.  “Fine, if you don’t wish to hear of the men who walk among the fae, I’ll be going.”  He arose, adjusting his sash self-importantly and sashayed all of five feet before Virgil recovered from his stun and called to him.

“Roman, wait!”

The bard turned around, smile as brilliant as the sun above and tinged with hubris.  “Yes, Robbin’ my time Hood?”

Virgil glared half-heartedly at his friend.  “What was that you were saying about the Fae?”

Roman smiled a wolf’s grin.  “Ah, so  _now_  you’re interested in my tales.”

“Can you blame me?”  Virgil said dryly.  “You have a habit of regaling willing and unwilling alike.”

Roman turned up his nose at that, making an offended noise.  “I assure you, all of my audiences are enthralled.”

“By how one man can have such a big head,” Virgil fired back, but they were both smiling.

Virgil reclined against their tree and patted the ground beside him.  “Very well then, bard. Tell your tale.”

Roman changed when he told a story.  His voice rumbled, deep and worn, as if the fates themselves spoke through him.  His eyes shone, gazing at far-off lands and tales from the past.  He wove a story for Virgil, a story of a man who once walked among the fae of the forest.   _One night, he had wandered too far away from the trail, beguiled by lights and the sound of laughter, carried on the distant winds.  He found himself in the middle of the most magnificent feast, laden with succulent pigs and roasted rabbits and strange, exotic sweets he had never seen in his life._

_At the head of the table sat the world’s most beautiful being, and they smiled at him, eyes as white as death.  Welcome, traveler, they said.  We’ve been waiting for you._

_The man was very clever, and he immediately dropped to one knee before the fae, bowing his head.  “Forgive me,” he begged, “for my inopportune tardiness, lovely one.”_

_The fae laughed and was pleased, as fae love flattery.  They bid him rise and partake in the feast, but he refused, citing his rudeness as cause for punishment.  Instead, he offered to serve them.  The fae found favor with this and allowed it to be done.  Thus, the food was the man’s to be served.  The fae ate his food and were bound by their rules to be his guests, not to harm him._

_The fae was livid when they found out of his trickery but could do him no mischief.  Instead, they took him in as their own lover and friend, trying each day to tempt him to take the delicious foods.  Yet each day, the clever man found a way to trap the fae in their own words.  Eventually, the fae came to respect the man and allowed him to leave, but the clever man knew something important: the fae cannot lie.  He asked his lover if he would be able to leave safely, and the fae said yes._

_They say it was then, when he was faced with his freedom, that he realized he didn’t want to leave._

“So…” Virgil drawled, squinting at Roman.  “Don’t eat his food, watch for loopholes, and run if he starts being cagey about killing me?”

Roman rolled his eyes.  “Yes, Boreo-wulf. Don’t eat his food, watch for loopholes, and try not to get murdered.”

“Can do.”  Virgil nodded.

“Great.”  Roman eyed Virgil, fidgeting, and huffed out a dramatic sigh.  “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t get it,” Virgil finally admitted.  “Why are you helping me? Everyone else seems to think I have a death wish.”

Roman shrugged, but the corners of his mouth flirted with a melancholy smile.  “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Virgil’s heart started in his chest.  He tucked a curling strand of brown hair behind his ear and ignored the flush creeping up the back of his neck.  “Yes,” he confessed softly.  His chest ached.  “Fates help me, I love him.”

“Then you should be together,” Roman told him, but he was not looking at Virgil.  His gaze wandered across the village below them - almost engulfed by the forest - and toward the scribe’s office.  Logan’s office.  “If you love someone, you…”  He sighed and sunk into the grass next to Virgil, staring up at the puffy clouds above head.  “You should be able to tell him.”

“Then why don’t you?”  Virgil asked, laying beside his friend and trying to decide if that cloud looks more like taffy or a jelly bean.  He sees Patton everywhere now.

Roman laughed bitterly.  “And offer him what? A few songs and folktales? A husband who lives off of the spare coppers of others?”

“I think what you are isn’t as important, sometimes.”  _Taffy,_ Virgil decided.  _Definitely taffy._  “Just how you fit together.”

“A buffoon and a nerd,” Roman scoffed.  “A fine match indeed.”

“Two passionate men,” Virgil fired back, “who are just so insufferable no one else could stand them.”

Roman laughed again, genuine this time.  “Darling, you always say the nicest things.”

“I live to serve,” Virgil deadpanned, reaching for Roman’s hand and squeezing.  After a moment, Roman squeezed back.  “It’ll be okay, Roman,” Virgil said softly enough that they could both pretend it didn’t happen.  “I promise.”

An idea struck him, and he fished in his pocket with his free hand before pressing a small, paper-wrapped treat into Roman’s hand.  “Here. You might want to  _sweeten_  him up first.”

“I have the uncomfortable feeling that you just made a pun.”

Virgil smirked.  “Maybe.”  He sat up, pulling Roman with him.  “Come on, Your Highness. You’ve got a job to do.”

“Now?!”  Roman’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Yes, now,” Virgil scoffed.  “If I’m going to trapeze through an enchanted forest for the… being I love, you can give your crush a piece of butterscotch.”

“What is a butterscotch?”

“Delicious.”  Virgil rolled his eyes and knocked his shoulder against Roman’s. “He’ll love it.”

“I thought I was the one who was supposed to be dispensing relationship advice here,” Roman stalled.

Virgil snorted. “Get out of here, bard. Go sing an epic love song or whatever it is you romantic types do.”

“They’re called ballads,” Roman sulked, drawing himself to his feet.  He took a deep breath, swinging his hands back and forth a few times before grinning down at Virgil apprehensively. “See you on the other side.”

He walked down the hill and towards Logan.

Virgil watched him until he disappeared among the village’s thatched huts and cobbled streets.

He pulled another candy from his pocket and popped it into his mouth, letting the taste of sunshine and lightning dissolve on his tongue until it was gone.

He sighed and laid back, musing over Roman’s advice.

It was a terrible idea.  Even discounting Patton, the woods were fraught with danger.  Wolves and poisons and wild magic and monsters - he’d never make it to Patton’s home.  It was a risk only a madman would take.

Virgil rose in one fluid motion and stalked down the grassy knoll to the village.  He’d leave in the morning.  He popped another butterscotch in his mouth and smiled.

 

“I’ve missed you.”  Patton pulls him inside, hemlock eyes shining.

Virgil smiles, melting before Patton as he always does.  “You saw me just last night.”

Patton giggles, for they both know their lines in this refrain.  “That’s a day too long.”

“Did it leave you  _day_ -zed and confused?”  Virgil finds he cannot stop touching the fae, drawing a finger down the slope of his cheek, running his hands through faded purple hair, toying with the edges of a shirt made from no material Virgil knows.

Patton laughs, so brightly and sweetly that Virgil can almost ignore the teeth that stretch the whole long way down his throat.  “It just  _night_  have.”  He raises himself up on his tiptoes to rub their noses together.  He is so, so warm.  Vaguely, Virgil is surprised his hands are not yet burned.  He is different in the sunshine, warm and real under Virgil’s hands in a way he has never been before.  Acres of smooth skin pass beneath his fingertips.

Patton is here.  Virgil is here.  Despite everything, their time and their place match, and they can stand here, holding each other in the sunlight.

“I love you,” Virgil whispers.  He has never said it before, not to anyone, and yet he is not afraid.  Time after time, Patton makes him brave.

Patton’s eyes shine.  “I love you, too.”

Virgil kisses him again, just to taste the words on his lips.  The fae cannot lie, after all.

On the stove, a boiling pot hisses, contents boiling over.  Patton detaches himself from Virgil with a soft noise and rushes over, taking the pot off the heat.  “You’re just too  _hot_  for me, Anxiety.”

Patton turns and grins at him as if Virgil can’t see his long teeth, bits of old meat caught between.  Virgil almost manages to make himself believe that he cannot. They say love is blind, after all.  “Everything’s boiling over.”

Virgil runs a hand through his mussed hair and grins, feeling so incredibly light as he drops onto a cozy couch.  “Maybe you’re just too  _sweet.”_

“Could be sweeter,” Patton murmurs, gazing out over his garden path, paved with buried skulls.  “I haven’t had a visitor in the longest time.”

The flowers sway under his gaze. They’re starving.

Patton snaps out of it, laughing, and winks at him.  “Are you hungry, kiddo?” He carefully lifts that boiling pot.  “I’m trying out a new recipe for toffee that I think you’ll like!”

“Will you give it to me?” Virgil, more of habit than anything else, asks.

Patton sighs dramatically, but the corner of his mouth quirks into a grin. “Yes, you big _toffie,_  I’ll give it to you.”

At last, Virgil allows himself to untense, lips curling into that soft smile reserved for Patton. “It smells delicious,” he confesses.

Patton pours the thick, brown confection into a tray. “It’s all that sugar. Sure comes in  _candy.”_

Virgil snorts, gray eyes following the graceful sway of Patton’s body as he sticks his hands into the toffee and starts to shape it. Patton moves like the forest he dwells in, smooth and alert as the wind through the trees. His face is serene as he gently handles the boiling sugar.

“But  _candies_  be any better than the last batch?” Virgil decides not to think about it, as he decides not to think about most of the things that make Patton… otherly. For the most part, he saves those thoughts for the Devil’s hour, when he can stare at the ceiling and blame his madness on a lack of sleep.

Patton’s hands should be covered in burns, but they are not. “You tell me,  _sugar.”_   He cuts a square of toffee with his talons; they slice through effortlessly. The fae glides across the room, settling down in Virgil’s lap.

“I give this to you,” he says softly, raising his hand and watching as Virgil’s lips part to let the sweet through. It is hot in his mouth, but Patton handled it enough that it won’t burn the human. It melts on his tongue, and Patton leans forward until their lips are barely brushing. “If you give me something just as sweet in return.”

Virgil shivers at the slide of the fae’s words against his skin, and the human’s hands find their way to the fae’s hips. “As you wish.”

Patton tastes of toffee and sugar and old blood.

 

 

“What the hell have you been doing?” Logan demanded, cornering him against his hut a short time after Virgil talked to Roman.

“Hey, Logan, great to see you too. Glad the courses on social etiquette haven’t gone to waste.” Virgil met his gaze challengingly, steeling himself.

“Now is not the time for niceties.”  Logan scowled, brown eyes turbulent. “I’m concerned for you.”

“I’m fine,” Virgil said tersely.

“Then explain the shadows on your face,” Logan hissed. “Explain why you need to carry iron with you every day. Explain why you smell like sugar, but I never see you eat anything.”

“I’m a dark edgelord with a sweet tooth,” Virgil hazarded.

“This is the fourteenth century, Virgil. Candies are not exactly a common product.” Logan frowned. “You’re deflecting.”

“I thought I was Virgil.”

Logan breathed out a long stream of air through clenched teeth. “Please, Virgil. Please tell me that you haven’t done and aren’t planning to do anything stupid.”

“You mean Roman? Nah, he’s all yours.”  Virgil smirked.

“I’m serious, Virgil!” Logan snapped, voice rough and desperate. “You don’t sleep. You have fae food. You’re always on edge, and I know you’ve been sneaking out to the edge of the forest to meet with… him.”

Virgil shrugged, over-nonchalant. “Listen, Logan, I appreciate it, but I promise you I’m fine. I’ve got all the wards and the herbs and iron. I can handle myself.”

“But you shouldn’t have to!” Logan ran a hand through his hair, leaving it tousled.  “You don’t know  _what_  he is. You can’t trust him!”

Virgil pulled away roughly.  “He’s Patton, and I love him.”  He clenched his hands into fists.  “That’s all that matters.”

He turned and stalled off.  

“Virgil, please!”  Logan called.  “I’m worried about you!”

Virgil tossed a disinterested glance over his shoulder as he walked away. “Don’t be.” He needed to pack. “And do yourself a favor and talk to Roman. He’s looking for you.”

Logan froze, heart jerking inside of his chest.  “Really?” His question trembled in the air, but Virgil was already gone.

From the forest, a pair of hemlock-white eyes blinked slowly, then disappeared.

 

 

It is Patton that he is in love with. It is the idea of Patton that sends chills running down his spine. In a way, Logan is right. Patton is not human. He is something Else, something Other. And yet he loves Patton. He loves him like the taste of caramel, loves him like the kiss of the sun against his skin, loves him like the sound of laughter carried on the wind.

Virgil was damned from the moment he first saw the gap in the starlight, flickering at the corners of his vision. He was a dead man from the moment he first dared to press his lips to a fae’s, to see if he could taste that smile with far too many teeth. He was cursed when he saw Patton fall from a tree, laughing all the way. He tore out his own heart and offered it to something that could be a monster.

He loves Patton, but he can never truly know him.

He loves him anyway.

 

 

“Patton,” Virgil asks, gazing out of the window.  The fae curled up against his chest makes a soft  _hm?,_ more of a purr or a rumble than a word.  They are laying on the couch together, Virgil’s hands toying with Patton’s curls.

“How long have I been here?”

“A few hours maybe,” Patton murmurs, turning his head so his chin rests on Virgil’s sternum.  He looks up with sleepy eyes, long lashes drooping.  “Why?”

Virgil stares out at the garden, and the garden stares back.  “The sun hasn’t moved.”

“It doesn’t.”  Patton yawns, and his teeth reach down his throat.  “Not here. I can’t be in the moonlight.  Here, it’s nothing but sunshine.”

Virgil cannot imagine a world without the mother moon.  What is he doing here?  What world of eternal sunshine has he wandered into?

“Would you ever hurt me?”  He asks before he can stop himself.

The fae blinks up at him, tilting his head.  His eyebrows draw together in hurt, and his bottom lip trembles.  “Why would you ask that?”

“Patton.”  Virgil’s hands are shaking.  “You can’t lie to me.”

The fae is fully awake, looking at him through baleful eyes.  “I know I can’t.”

“Then tell me.”  The fae is a heavy weight on his chest, pinning him down, crushing him.  Virgil can barely breathe.  “Patton, would you ever hurt me?”

“I can’t believe you.”  Patton draws back, eyes shining with tears as he sits up.  “I… You really think I would? I love you, Virgil.”

Virgil swallows.  “That’s not what I asked.”

“You shouldn’t have to ask,” Patton hisses, eyes flashing with something dark.  Outside, the sky begins to cloud over.

“I know,” Virgil says softly, reaching forward and tangling his fingers with Patton’s.  The fae calms, and the sky clears.  “Just… please, Patton. Would you ever hurt me?”

The fae is silent for a long, long time, staring at him with eyes the color of the most beautiful poison.  He licks his lips, soft and swollen from Virgil’s kisses.  “I don’t… I…”  He takes a deep breath and starts again.  “Virgil, I would-”

He is cut off by Virgil’s lips crashing into his, rough, calloused hands cupping his face.  Virgil kisses away the words before they can ever fall, before this world of theirs can burn down.  Virgil doesn’t know what Patton was going to say.  Maybe no.  Maybe that the fae would never dream of hurting him, maybe that the human would be safe in this world away from the mother moon.

But maybe yes.

Patton makes him want to be brave, but Virgil would never be brave enough for that.

So Virgil kisses him desperately, cheeks wet with salt water, because he can never know what Patton was going to say.

 

 

Logan met him just as dawn broke, standing at the edge of their village.

“You can’t stop me,” Virgil said.

Logan smiled, yet there was no joy in it.  “I know. I just - ”  He swallowed deeply and looked down, scuffing his boots against the dusty road.  “I wanted to see you off. To wish you an utterly uneventful journey.”

“It’s just a little walk through the woods, Lo,” Virgil said lightly, trying to keep trepidation from his voice.  “I’ll be fine.”  He looked around.  “What, Roman decided a trip into the enchanted forest wasn’t worth his time?”

A flicker of a smirk crossed Logan’s mouth.  “I may have worn him out.”

A matching smirk grew on Virgil’s face.  “Took you two long enough.”

“Yes, well” - Logan cleared his throat, adjusting his spectacles - “Roman has informed me that, if you love someone, you should ‘go for it’.”

Virgil huffed out a laugh.  “Preaching to the choir, specs.”  He gripped the burlap sack in his pocket and nodded.  “I’ll see you soon.”  He turned and started to walk into the forest.

“Virgil!”  Logan called.

The man turned.  “Yes?”

“I…”  Logan faulted, then offered a hesitant smile.  “I hope this fae of yours treats you well. He’s going to have to deal with me otherwise.”

Virgil laughed, trying to ignore the prickling a the corners of his eyes.  “You’re being dramatic, Logan. I’ll be right back.”  Neither of them were sure if it was true.

Logan stepped forward and threw his arms around Virgil.  “Be safe.”

Virgil hugged him back.  “I promise.”

 

 

Patton pulls back, wearing a dazed sort of smile.  “What was that all about?”

_I’m not as brave as I should be,_ Virgil doesn’t explain.  Instead, he shrugs and smiles.  “I love you.”

Patton melts against him, pressing a kiss to the flesh of Virgil’s neck.  Sharp teeth barely brush his skin, and Virgil shivers.  “I love you, too.”

Virgil clings to that truth.

“Are you still hungry?”  Patton fishes in his pocket and pulls out a square of caramel.  “I made a fresh batch this morning!”

Virgil’s words are stuck in his throat as the fae unwraps it carefully, letting the smell of sugar fill the cottage.

“Come on,”  Patton coos, holding out the treat.

The caramel glistens in the eternal sunlight, sticky and sweet. Virgil can practically taste it melting on his tongue, dancing on his taste buds. He grips the iron bar in his pocket until his skin breaks, trickling blood down onto the wooden floor. Patton’s eyes glow, too big to be true, too pale to be real.

He holds out the candy again, more insistently. His hand is long and bony, ending with talons.

“Go on, Virgil.” Patton smiles with far too many teeth. “Take a bite.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of a Thirteen Days of Halloween series I did with the AMAZING @ierindoodles on tumblr or @v-writes here. We had the same prompt each day, and he would create an art piece and I would write a fic. I intended to keep it solely on tumblr, but figured that it's probably a good idea to back it up here. You can find his AMAZING art for this fic [Here](https://ierindoodles.tumblr.com/post/179291278199/13-days-of-halloween-day-three-candy-read)
> 
> I'll probably update the rest of the stories here whenever I think about it, but this was one of my favorites, so I figured I'd post it first.
> 
> Roast me if you see a typo!


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